In a rolling line for rolling a steel material, a steel material is charged into a heating furnace in an oxidizing atmosphere, is heated for several hours at a temperature generally in the range of 1100 to 1300° C., and subsequently is hot rolled. When hot rolling is performed, primary scale is generated during heating and secondary scale is generated after discharging from the heating furnace. If rolling of a steel material is performed without removing such scale, the scale becomes buried in the surface of the steel sheet, which is a product, and causes scale defects. Scale defects greatly influence the product quality, because scale defects significantly impair the surface condition of a steel sheet and become the initiation of cracks during bending work.
To solve the problem, the following methods have been proposed: (1) a method of applying an antioxidant agent to a surface of a steel material (see, for example, Patent Literature 1), (2) a method of heating a steel material at a temperature equal to or lower than the melting point of fayalite (about 1170° C.) (see, for example, Patent Literature 2), (3) a method of performing rolling in a completely oxygen-free state (see, for example, Patent Literature 3), (4) a method of making the temperature before rolling and temperature during rolling be high (about 1000° C. or higher), and (5) a method of completely removing generated scale (see, for example, Patent Literature 4).
However, with the method (1), not only it is necessary to additionally perform a troublesome application operation, but also the production cost is increased due to the cost of a processing agent. With the method (2), a load applied to the rolling mill increases, because a steel material is heated at a low temperature. Moreover, depending on the steel grade, the method may not be used in consideration of ensuring material characteristics. The method (3) is not realistic, because it requires high equipment cost. With the method (4), fuel consumption rate increases and scale loss increases, because discharging from the heating furnace is performed at a high temperature.
As a solution to the problem, the method (5) of completely removing generated scale, which is a method of performing so-called “descaling”, is effective. A descaling nozzle used for a descaling apparatus for performing descaling usually sprays high pressure water onto a surface of a steel sheet and peels off and removes scale from the steel sheet using the impact force of the sprayed water.